Aswin is an academic neurosurgical trainee in London and is completing his PhD at Great Ormond Street Hospital & UCL’s Institute of Child Health.

He has been involved in collaborative research and the British Neurosurgical Trainee Research Collaborative (BNTRC) since 2013, served as the BNTRC Chair in 2016 and is currently the Academic Representative of the British Neurosurgical Trainee Association (BNTA). He was a co-investigator on the BNTRC’s landmark Dex-CSDH trial.

Presentation at the WReN Scientific Meeting, Glasgow, May 2022

Picking the right project: The British Neurosurgical Trainee Research Collaborative (BNTRC) experience

Objectives

After attending this session, persons will be able to:

• Understand different strategies for picking projects in a research collaborative
• Appreciate the pros and cons of each
• Appreciate that different strategies may be more or less suitable in different settings

Abstract 

Setting appropriate research priorities and choosing suitable research projects are crucial to collaborative research organisations.

I will share the experience of the British Neurosurgical Trainee Research Collaborative (BNTRC), highlighting the different strategies we have utilised over the last 10 years of our existance, their relative strengths and weaknesses and how our choices have been dictated by the changing dynamics within the organisation and organisational priorities.